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Income Taxes
6 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2018
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]  
Income Taxes
INCOME TAXES

The Company operates in the United States and many foreign countries and is subject to the tax laws of many jurisdictions. Changes in tax laws or the interpretation of tax laws can affect the Company’s earnings, as can the resolution of pending and contested tax issues. The Company's consolidated effective income tax rate is affected by a number of factors, including the mix of domestic and foreign earnings and the effect of exchange rate changes on deferred taxes.
    
In December 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. This new law made significant changes to U.S. income taxation at the federal level for individuals, pass-through entities, and corporations. For corporations, the changes included a reduction in the statutory rate on taxable income from 35% to 21% and a move from a worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system for companies with foreign operations. Under the territorial system, except in limited situations or for limited types of income, earnings from foreign operations are generally no longer subject to U.S. taxation. To accommodate the move from the previous worldwide tax system, the law provides for a one-time transition tax on the undistributed post-1986 earnings of foreign subsidiaries as of either November 2, 2017 or December 31, 2017, whichever undistributed earnings amount is greater. Other provisions of the new law allow for immediate expensing of investments in property, plant, and equipment and impose limitations on the deductibility of interest, executive compensation, and meals and entertainment expense. For tax years beginning after the date of enactment, the new law requires that certain income earned by foreign subsidiaries, referred to in the law as global intangible low-taxed income ("GILTI"), be included in the U.S. taxable income of the parent company. The Company has made an accounting policy election to account for any additional tax resulting from the GILTI provisions in the year in which it is incurred and has not recorded any deferred taxes on temporary book-tax differences related to this income. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, the Company’s U.S. federal statutory tax rate is the 21% rate under the new law. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, the Company's U.S. federal statutory tax rate was 31.5%, reflecting a portion of the year at the 35% rate under the old law and a portion at the 21% rate under the new law. As under the prior tax law, the Company continues to assume repatriation of all undistributed earnings of its consolidated foreign subsidiaries and has therefore provided for expected foreign withholding taxes on the distribution of those earnings where applicable, net of any U.S. tax credit attributable to those withholding taxes.

The Company accounted for the effects of the changes in the U.S. tax law in the period in which they were enacted, which was the third quarter of fiscal year 2018. Due to the complexities associated with understanding and applying various aspects of the new law and quantifying or estimating amounts upon which calculations required to account for new law are based, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recognized that it would be difficult for many companies to complete the determination of all accounting effects of the new law within the available time frame for issuing their financial statements for the period of enactment. As a result, the SEC provided guidance permitting corporations to record and report specific items impacted by the new law on the basis of reasonable estimates where final amounts had not been determined and designate them as provisional amounts, or to continue to account for specific items under the previous law if it was not possible to develop reasonable estimates within the time frame for issuance of the financial statements for the period of enactment. As the accounting for provisional amounts is refined or finalized in subsequent reporting periods, companies are expected to record appropriate adjustments to the initial accounting, removing the provisional designation on an item in the period that the accounting for that item is completed. A measurement period of no more than one year from the date of enactment of the new law is provided under the SEC guidance to complete all such adjustments.

The consolidated effective income tax rates for the quarter and six months ended September 30, 2018 were approximately 31% and 18%, respectively.  During the first and second quarters, the Company reversed amounts previously recorded for dividend withholding taxes on distributed and undistributed retained earnings of a foreign subsidiary.  The reversal followed the resolution of uncertainties with the local country taxing authorities with respect to the inclusion of the tax under a tax holiday applicable to the subsidiary and was attributable to retained earnings amounts previously distributed or expected to be distributed prior to the expiration of the tax holiday.  Without the dividend withholding tax reversal, the consolidated effective income tax rates for the quarter and six months would have been approximately 33% and 32%, respectively.  Consolidated income tax expense for the current year periods was generally based on the mix of U.S. and foreign earnings at the projected effective tax rates for fiscal year 2019 across all subsidiaries in their respective tax jurisdictions, plus certain incremental U.S. taxes applicable to a portion of the Company’s foreign earnings under the new tax law.  The effective tax rates without the dividend withholding tax reversal also include the net effect of several smaller items that were accounted for on a discrete basis in each quarterly reporting period.

The consolidated effective income tax rates for the quarter and six months ended September 30, 2017, which were determined under the prior U.S. corporate income tax law, were approximately 33% and 30%, respectively.  Consolidated income tax expense for those periods also includes the net effect of smaller items that were accounted for on a discrete basis that did not materially impact the effective tax rate for either period.
All components of the Company’s consolidated tax position have been accounted for based on the new tax law, and no specific items are being accounted for under the previous tax law as permitted by the SEC guidance. However, the Company continues to review the primary effects of the new law on its financial statements. In addition, the Company continues to analyze certain aspects of the new law, and future treasury regulations, tax law technical corrections, notices, rulings, and other guidance issued by the government could result in changes or refinements to the amounts currently recorded. These include potential refinements of the amounts by which deferred tax assets and liabilities and the U.S. tax liability for undistributed foreign earnings were adjusted for the effects of the new law, which could be revised based on continuing review of the Company's calculation of the one-time transition tax, including further analysis of the undistributed earnings amounts represented by cash and other specified assets held by its foreign subsidiaries. As a result, those amounts continue to be classified as provisional, and additional adjustments, which could be material, may be recorded in upcoming quarter ending December 31, 2018, which is the end of the allowed one-year measurement period to complete the final accounting.